Bites from other Blogs

Bananas foster is a slightly old-fashioned (retro, of course!) dessert that consists of bananas that are cooked in a rich caramel sauce, doused in rum and set alight. It’s delicious and entertaining, and is generally served with vanilla ice cream. At Culinary Concoctions by Peabody, bananas foster are used the inspiration for a really kicked up Bananas Foster Bread Pudding. The breadpudding includes bananas, brown sugar, nutmeg and cinnamon, and once it is baked it is served with a bananas foster sauce spiked with banana liqueur. It’s comfort food that you can set on fire.

Valentine’s Day may be over for this year, but that’s no reason to stop baking sweets for your sweet every once in a while. Canela y Camino‘s Valentine Dimple Cake is a perfect example. Baked in a heart-shaped pan for the holiday, the recipe for a simple vanilla cake that is studded all-over with fresh raspberries can easily be adapted into a standard round cake pan so that you can enjoy it any day of the year. Personally, I think I’d stick with a heart shaped pan anyway, just because the red and white cake looks so appropriate in a heart-shaped serving dish.

Annie’s Eat‘s Cherry Limeade Cupcakes were inspired by a sweet twist on a classic lemonade offered at a popular fast food chain. The drink uses sweet cherry juice to take the edge off of sweet-tart limeade. The cupcakes start off as plain vanilla cakes, but are then soaked in lime syrup to infuse the limeade zestiness into them. The red frosting – which is sweetly decorated with a maraschino cherry and a lime wedge as garnish – gets its color and flavor from cherry juice. I’ve had some great success with cupcakes inspired by drinks before, and if looks are anything to go by, these should be a hit, too.

It’s still pretty wintry these days in most areas (of the US, at least), but perhaps that is one of the things that makes Baking and Books‘ Sweet Corn Coffeecake with Strawberries and Blackberries seem so appealing: it looks and sounds quite summery! The cake has a fairly high ratio of cornmeal to flour, so it has a somewhat coarse texture that sets off the fresh blackberries and strawberries nicely. Don’t worry if you can’t find fresh berries at this time of year, because frozen will work well, too.

It’s hard not to love Rice Krispietreats when they’re one of the easiest recipes out there. They’re kid friendly, but a fresh batch is hard even for grown-ups to resist – especially if they’re dressed up as Cookies and Cream Rice Krispie Treats. Cast Sugar posted this variation on the traditional treat, using crushed up Oreo cookies as a mix in for a chocolate-laced marshmallow and cereal base. The treats are taken over the top by a final topping of white chocolate and more crushed Oreo cookies.

This Cardamom Crumb Cake may look relatively unassuming, but Rosa’s Yummy Yums assures us that it is anything but. The coffee cake is flavored with cardamom, coffee, walnuts, vanilla and orange zest, for a really unusual and bold flavor combination that is a nice change from your typical cinnamon coffee cake. Streusel topping adds some crunch to the soft cake, but also provides another opportunity to work in more of those same interesting flavors into the recipe – which is originally a Dorie Greenspan creation – for a second time and let them really shine.